Premiership kit rankings: Every new shirt rated
By Ben Coles, Rugby Reporter 6 September 2022 • 1:31pm
Ready to browse some new rugby kits (or threads, as the kids call them) which cost significantly more than during your childhood? Me too, dear reader. Welcome back.
You can almost smell the grass/artificial turf ahead of Friday night's opening games, so which sides this weekend - apart from Saracens on a bye week - will be running out in the most aesthetically-pleasing attire at the start of a new Gallagher Premiership season? Find out below. Oh, and look back on our previous offerings for 2021-22, 2020-21 and 2018-19.
N/A - Worcester Warriors
Given the recent off-field chaos surrounding the club understandably no new kits have been released by Worcester, so we can expect them to be running out in last season's away strip for their opening games against London Irish. That away kit hadn't actually been released by the time we did last season's kit rankings, but the home kit (above) was nice.
It all feels a bit fatuous to be discussing what kit Worcester will be wearing when the club have been in such a desperate situation with players and staff facing such uncertainty, so let's move on.
12th - Bath
Quite difficult to get a sight of the new Bath kits in their promotional material given the various bits of strobe lighting and projected videos, a sensation similar to desperately searching for your friends in a nightclub around 2am (remember doing that? I barely do at this point).
Luckily the players' photoshoot images are a bit clearer. It's 25 years now since Bath won the Heineken Cup and the home kit pays homage to that, sticking with the blue, black and white hoops and by using Max Ojomoh and Tom de Glanville, whose fathers played in that side, to model the kit. Of course there's an obvious difference with that kit from 1998 - proper collars. You won't find any here, although you will learn about the various Dyson products. The away strip is grey and, let's be honest, boring. Shortly before going to press, Bath also dropped a fairly straightforward European kit too which it turns out is actually navy, not that you could tell from this video.
11th - Exeter Chiefs
Not blowing anyone away and yet still an improvement on last season. Note the new logo and also a new main sponsor (Exeter started last season without one), with a warm welcome along to the "leading group of industrial engineering supplies in the UK". Always intrigued if there's actually any reasoning behind patterns like that on kits and I can't see any in the promo material, which is almost better than fabricating some rubbish about the local historical meaning of wavy swirls. They're both absolutely fine. I already know that I won't remember them by this point next year.
10th - Saracens
Bit of a risky game trying to incorporate "patterns from the stadium seats and structure" into your kits, as Saracens have done this season. The home kit's OK - the best bit probably being the black shorts with snazzy red stripe down the side - but I'm 99 per cent certain the away kit is just a stolen version of the colour scheme Edinburgh wore a few years back after their big rebrand, except Saracens have tried to decode it. Decent enough but would Saracens fans rush to buy one? Unsure.
9th - Gloucester
Most intrigued actually not by the shirt here but the grey shorts, which were black last season with a fetching red stripe down the side. Thought for a moment Jonny May had brought some shorts from home to the Twickenham photoshoot. As for the shirt, no black in sight anymore, or homages to the city's crest, just plenty of stripes.
Two cool details about an otherwise fairly standard set of Gloucester strips - both the men's and women's team are wearing the same shirt for the first time, and supporters who have SLATER 4 printed on the back of the 2022/23 shirt will pay an additional £10 while kit makers Elite Pro Sports donating £5 for every shirt printed to the 4Ed fundraising campaign to support Ed Slater.
The blue away kit was voted for by supporters - so you can't complain - and is basically the same as last season's except with diagonal stripes and no white trims to the collar and sleeves. "Perfectly fine" was last year's verdict, so let's recycle that.
8th - Harlequins
Harlequins could always be relied on with the adidas era to put out something exciting, but now Castore are in town and have played it pretty straight, incorporating "an integrated diamond pattern" into the home shirt. That looks like a real collar on the home kit but it isn't, which is very weird.
Icy vibes from that away kit and it's not bad, splattered again with diamonds. The 'Big Game' third kit is arguably the best of the bunch, and actually has a map of Twickenham underneath with the club crest placed where the Twickenham Stoop sits. Cute! Better than most.
7th - Wasps
You can always rely on Wasps to do well in these rankings, mainly because they know how to avoid a horrorshow. After topping the 2021-22 list by hinting at a honeycomb trim, Wasps and Hummel have now gone turbo and plastered honeycomb hoops over the whole thing, the dot effect "inspired by the movement of a wasp’s wing". It's a lot, but I also can't stop looking at it, particularly when that dot pattern also goes down the side of the shorts. The fans wanted hoops and therefore will be happy.
No away kit yet - although there are Twitter rumours it's a similar blue to Gloucester - which makes it hard to place them much higher. Also mildly concerning as Wasps play away at Kingsholm on Sunday. Imagine just playing in your two respective home kits when there's no colour clash... nope, will never catch on.
6th - Bristol Bears
Browsing past year's kit rankings was interesting because you can really see how after their first season back in the Premiership, Bristol decided to go mad with their kits and didn't look back. Things seemed to have calmed down a bit though for 2022-23 with a very blue home kit - unveiled by attaching a giant version to a hot air balloon sent up into the sky "at the city’s iconic International Balloon Fiesta" (me neither, but that sounds fun).
There seems to be some hidden scribbling within the home shirt - including a lot of love hearts - but there's no explanation what it all means. The away kit's more lively, featuring an "electric pink and blue slash" across the front because, well, Bears. Not as fun as previous years but pretty good.
5th - Northampton Saints
Saints are admittedly working from a pretty great base with that colour scheme, which also means there's no reason to not deliver something pleasing on the eye. And this works great! Amazing how many variations of yellow and black stripes you can come up with and this year's home kit makes that main sponsor - now Cinch, who you know from seeing them absolutely everywhere from the moment you open your eyelids - works well.
And the away kit, I hear you ask? Well look, they have to have one as per the rules, and when a club announce a new kit by calling it "striking", you know you're in for a hell of a ride. Rylan's a fan, which feels like enough approval. "Saints will be hoping to hit a purple patch this season" reads the release and yes alright, that's quite enough, don't spoil it.
4th - Leicester Tigers
Liked Leicester's offerings last season and they duly won the title, so it's a bit of a surprise to see them mix things up quite as much as they have. The multiple red and white stripes are gone on the home kit, with a more toned-down offering featuring only a touch of red and white and lots of green.
You're no doubt already wondering about the quirky pattern on the all-red away kit - which "echoes the club’s cult away strips of the 1980s and '90s" per the press release - and displays "the reverse colours of the ‘TIIIGERS’ soundwave graphic" across the middle, apparently. Last season's tiger striped away kit was great so maybe this is a tiny step backwards, but still right up there.
3rd - Newcastle Falcons
Each year with the kit rankings we're on the lookout for best jargon, and I reckon Newcastle have been the standout given their kit includes 'True North', which is... "a fixed point of orientation in a spinning world, which helps you stay on track. This internal compass is derived from our most deeply-held beliefs, values and leadership principles." Sensational.
More importantly the kits with their "elegant geometric graphics" are quite nice, particularly the away number in "Gosforth green". Not revolutionary, but a great offering.
2nd - London Irish
Mixing things up this season with a new design and shirt sponsor, both of which are welcome after sticking with the same kit over the past two years due to Covid (which Bath also notably did). The home kit's packed with "Gaelic symbology", as the club put it, paying heavy homage to the club's Irish links, and that collar looks sharp too along with the hoops.
You get the same Gaelic pattern with the away kit, only a touch more subtle, so that's top marks for maintaining consistent styles across both shirts. Ollie Hassell-Collins (right) looks a touch concerned by everything but don't worry Ollie, they're good! Both are upgrades on the kits used over the past two seasons so it's a big yes and high marks.
1st - Sale Sharks
Liked Sale's kits last year but now gone are the slightly complicated white stripes and we're left with straight blue and red kits which... work really well. Paring things back a bit isn't always bad, as these two kits show, and from the promo images of George Ford and Manu Tuilagi it looks as tough we're getting matching shorts for each shirt as well. Praise be.
Ten points to you at home if you knew that shade of red was called "garnet" (and don't lie to me). Proper white collars and shark-fin logos embossed on the sleeves... this kit feels pretty timeless and it's Sale's best for a while. Rush out and buy it, Sale fans.
Topic: Kits Rated - Telegraph (Read 578 times)
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